A cut to the City's parks division budget could mean the grass gets clipped a little less often at some of Prince George's sports fields.
Last January, a $125,000 decrease in the parks budget resulted in six seasonal labourer positions being eliminated -- the equivalent of moving from three "mobile crews" to one. With just one available mobile crew, neighbourhood parks would have suffered.
"[The City] asked me to find ways to better that," said parks manager Flavio Viola. "My suggestion was to remove the afternoon and weekend boulevard crew, and with those two people develop another mobile crew [to look after neighbourhood parks]."
On occasion, the boulevard workers were asked -- in a backup role -- to mow the grass at smaller sports fields and that won't happen now.
"It might affect, very little, the smaller ball diamonds," Viola said. "But places like Rotary Soccer Fields, Citizen Field -- the premium sports fields -- won't be affected by this."
Facilities that could see the grass rise higher than normal include youth baseball and softball parks in the Bowl. But, Viola doesn't anticipate any difference in service levels unless there are equipment breakdowns.
He said Volunteer Park in the Hart Highlands area and the North Nechako softball complex won't be affected.
